Me And You And Everyone We Know (Miranda July, USA, 2005)
Do you love me? Even though I'm a little bit irritating?
Romantic comedies are a guilty pleasure. For me, the joy they provide is in the insights into human relationships and reactions, but more often than not they're saturated with unpalatable schmaltz. A truly entertaining and intelligent romantic film is one of life's rare treats and with her feature debut, Miranda July has made a particularly refreshing and touching story about two people moving slowly towards love. Me And You And Everyone We Know is not merely a romantic comedy though; it is an ensemble piece, similar to a Todd Solondz creation but instead of the car-crash dysfunction there's a novel, funny and profound way of looking at the world.
Shoe salesman Richard Swersey (John Hawkes), newly separated from his wife and living with his two sons, is optimistic and ready for amazing things to happen, although when he meets Christine (Miranda July) he resists her advances. Christine is a part-time artist and driver for 'Eldercabs' who persists with a self-deriding romantic optimism: one of her art pieces is of her voice asking a recording of a cheering crowd, 'Do you love me? Even though I'm a little bit irritating?' These are apt questions as even if you find her a little bit irritating there is a lot to grow to love about her. If she ever veers towards behaving like a hopeless singleton romantic she will hit you with a bitingly funny line. To herself she bemoans Richard's lack of interest, 'We've got the rest of our lives to live together! But you've got to call me first, fucker!'
Richard and Christine are not the only characters trying to come together; Richard's two sons are having their own dramas of growing up and are the targets for others' relationship desires. Peter (Miles Thompson) is a cool, does-his-own-thing 14 year old whom the local girls want to use to play growing up with. For 10 year old Sylvie (Carlie Westerman) this involves a 1950s idealised version of domesticity, where her idols are the latest kitchen appliances; for best friends Heather and Rebecca who want to be sexually experienced, he is their plaything to practise on. Robby (Brandon Ratcliff), the 7 year old son, is having an inappropriate chat-room relationship with a woman - as inappropriate as a 7 year old could get. As with his brother's sexual experimentation, this storyline makes for scenes that are superficially shocking, but real, touching and hilarious with their innocence.
July workshopped the script for Me And You And Everyone We Know for two consecutive years at Sundance, and the time spent on it pays off through every scene being not only taut but also novel and engaging. There are limited human emotions to represent but limitless ways of showing them and July never lapses into trite cliché. Common situations are quickly deflected by something unexpected. Christine is giving a lift to one of her elderly clients, Michael, who has recently fallen in love with the aged and ailing Ellen, when he muses to Christine that perhaps he needed 70 years of life to be ready for a woman like Ellen. Just as you start to equate this information with Christine's loneliness they spot a goldfish in a bag of water left on the roof of the car driving along next to them. That a goldfish can cut through a discussion of love with the more pressing issues of physics, morality, mortality, duty, action and drama as they try to figure out how to the goldfish could survive this bizarre situation, is something remarkable.
Although July has worked with film before, she is a multimedia artist as comfortable with performance art as short story writing. Her aesthetic sense is reflected strongly in the look of the film, from Christine's cute and artsy wardrobe to the way things look against the blue sky of a sunny day. And the days are sunny and even the browns look appealing. Miranda July shares a look and a sensibility with two other actresses who, irrelevantly I'm sure, share her first initial, Maggie Gylenhaal and Margot Stilley: intelligent women with an independent spirit, which I hope there will be a lot more of to come.
Review by Jenny Jacoby
Romantic comedies are a guilty pleasure. For me, the joy they provide is in the insights into human relationships and reactions, but more often than not they're saturated with unpalatable schmaltz. A truly entertaining and intelligent romantic film is one of life's rare treats and with her feature debut, Miranda July has made a particularly refreshing and touching story about two people moving slowly towards love. Me And You And Everyone We Know is not merely a romantic comedy though; it is an ensemble piece, similar to a Todd Solondz creation but instead of the car-crash dysfunction there's a novel, funny and profound way of looking at the world.
Shoe salesman Richard Swersey (John Hawkes), newly separated from his wife and living with his two sons, is optimistic and ready for amazing things to happen, although when he meets Christine (Miranda July) he resists her advances. Christine is a part-time artist and driver for 'Eldercabs' who persists with a self-deriding romantic optimism: one of her art pieces is of her voice asking a recording of a cheering crowd, 'Do you love me? Even though I'm a little bit irritating?' These are apt questions as even if you find her a little bit irritating there is a lot to grow to love about her. If she ever veers towards behaving like a hopeless singleton romantic she will hit you with a bitingly funny line. To herself she bemoans Richard's lack of interest, 'We've got the rest of our lives to live together! But you've got to call me first, fucker!'
Richard and Christine are not the only characters trying to come together; Richard's two sons are having their own dramas of growing up and are the targets for others' relationship desires. Peter (Miles Thompson) is a cool, does-his-own-thing 14 year old whom the local girls want to use to play growing up with. For 10 year old Sylvie (Carlie Westerman) this involves a 1950s idealised version of domesticity, where her idols are the latest kitchen appliances; for best friends Heather and Rebecca who want to be sexually experienced, he is their plaything to practise on. Robby (Brandon Ratcliff), the 7 year old son, is having an inappropriate chat-room relationship with a woman - as inappropriate as a 7 year old could get. As with his brother's sexual experimentation, this storyline makes for scenes that are superficially shocking, but real, touching and hilarious with their innocence.
July workshopped the script for Me And You And Everyone We Know for two consecutive years at Sundance, and the time spent on it pays off through every scene being not only taut but also novel and engaging. There are limited human emotions to represent but limitless ways of showing them and July never lapses into trite cliché. Common situations are quickly deflected by something unexpected. Christine is giving a lift to one of her elderly clients, Michael, who has recently fallen in love with the aged and ailing Ellen, when he muses to Christine that perhaps he needed 70 years of life to be ready for a woman like Ellen. Just as you start to equate this information with Christine's loneliness they spot a goldfish in a bag of water left on the roof of the car driving along next to them. That a goldfish can cut through a discussion of love with the more pressing issues of physics, morality, mortality, duty, action and drama as they try to figure out how to the goldfish could survive this bizarre situation, is something remarkable.
Although July has worked with film before, she is a multimedia artist as comfortable with performance art as short story writing. Her aesthetic sense is reflected strongly in the look of the film, from Christine's cute and artsy wardrobe to the way things look against the blue sky of a sunny day. And the days are sunny and even the browns look appealing. Miranda July shares a look and a sensibility with two other actresses who, irrelevantly I'm sure, share her first initial, Maggie Gylenhaal and Margot Stilley: intelligent women with an independent spirit, which I hope there will be a lot more of to come.
Review by Jenny Jacoby
posted by Barnaby at 6:33 PM
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